DON'T GET IT WRONG!

We have a couple of REALLY good cooks in our small group. When we were having our Christmas party at the Boersma's Wednesday night, Mrs. Artie brought among other things this really delicious pecan pie. Unlike the rest of us, wannabe cooks, she makes her crust from scratch. When Jack was extolling her cooking prowess, she said, the recipe for pastry is in "Cotton Country" (the Southern Bible of Cooking), just use that and you can't go wrong. OH MRS ARTIE!- I can go down the Road to Wrong without even buying a road map. When it comes to cooking, the route of choice when experimenting around is the Wrong Road. If I had a dollar for every flop I ever ginned out of my kitchen, I would be in my cabana in a tropical isle sipping a cool drink collecting those monthly annuity checks. I love to cook, but things like making pastry from scratch, well that is just a little beyond me. At the same party, Mrs. Artie also brought some candy that is delicious. I asked her for the recipe and she looked at me and said, " Lora do you even have a candy thermometer?" I really got a good laugh with the tone that she used, as if "OK, this is beyond you, Old Girl." Well, in fact, I do have a candy thermometer and actually use it occasionally. It did turn out that most the the women in the group did not have one though. When I started talking about the old timey method, pre-thermometers of dropping the candy into cold water and seeing what stage-hard-medium-soft, the candy had cooked to just drew blank stares from almost everyone.

I have lots of long lists left to get ready for Christmas: gifts to buy, groceries to shop for, presents to wrap and cooking to do. This morning I get up bright and early to tackle some of these tasks. Bobby looks at me and says, "The leaves really need to be gotten off the house, out of the gutters, off the decks and drives, and out of the yard before it starts raining. I guess I will try to quit work early and come home and do that." Now he never really asks me to do it, but there is this huge implication that I am just sitting around and why haven't I already done that. So I shop for a while, and then come home and get busy in the yard. I finish up all that I think is absolutely required, and come inside. I start blogging and look up and Mitch, our nice young yard helper is driving up. BC has obviously called in the Calvary. I sent him up on the roof to finish what I did not get to, since I will not climb on the roof when I am here alone. Mr. C will be pleasantly surprised when he sees how much the two of us have accomplished.

As I was outside in the cold and it was sprinkling on me, I thought of my Grandmother James. She would say, "Miss, get out of that cold, you are going to catch your death." Where in the world did that saying come from? I can just hear her saying it though. After running in the rain and getting soaked the other day, I thought about her and how she would have been very unhappy and convinced I would get sick. Aren't we all thankful that all of those "old wife tales" have been disproved.

I also remembered how my Daddy used to call me "Missy Weewhoa". I assume when I was learning to talk I could not say Loralu and called myself Weewhoa-HOW FUNNY! It is an old Southern tradition to call young girls in the family Missy and I remember my Grandmother James, my Daddy, and my Aunts calling me Missy. You never hear anyone use that now, but it really is a cute custom. My younger brother, Noel, was call "Man" and my Daddy, who was the youngest in his family, was called "Baby" by his family-literally until the day he died. We have come a long way and the cute family nicknames have fallen to the wayside. I am not sure if that is an indication of the times we live in or the disintegration of the extended family. Whatever the reason, it strikes me as sad.

We are off to BC's office Christmas party tonight and a meal of "surf&turf". Fuel for that long run tomorrow, which is only 14 miles-A WALK IN THE PARK!